Establishing a Daily Creative Habit with Mike Brennan

[00:00:00] Sean Pritzkau: Hey there and welcome to episode 26 of We Can Do This. I'm really excited to have Mike Brennan on the podcast today. Mike describes himself as a creator and communicator telling stories on pages and stages. And I love how he says that because he truly is someone who communicates. Through his art and he does so equally well speaking on creativity and his own experience in engaging in a daily creative habit.

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[00:00:34] Sean Pritzkau: Now in the episode, we'll talk about how Mike actually took a significant break from his artwork. He describes it as a pretty dark time for him and how he reengaged art through a daily creative habit that after day one continued on for over 10 years of creating and publishing art online. Now I'm excited about this because instilling a daily creative habit into your own life is something that can be beneficial on multiple levels.

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[00:01:02] Sean Pritzkau: One like Mike talks through at a personal level, but also in your own business, whether you're someone who relies on publishing and creating content, whether that be written visual, a podcast, as well as if you're someone who is maybe a creative. As well as maybe if you're someone who's in the creative industry, like a, an artist, a designer, a podcast, or a videographer photographer, imagine the benefits to engaging in some way and doing this work daily, I'm personally someone who is a creature of habit.

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[00:01:38] Sean Pritzkau: So for example, you know, off and on throughout the year, I will try to get my workout routine in the space. I want it to be. And I think. Learn every single time that if I work out daily in some way, I go to the gym daily, that it is much more likely for me to continue to go into the gym on a regular basis.

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[00:02:01] Sean Pritzkau: Long-term but if I go try to go once a week, twice a week, three times a week, that habit tends to break down pretty quickly. So I'm excited for this episode. I hope this inspires you to maybe start a daily creative habit of your own, whether it be in your business and writing, publishing, recording daily content for your audience, whether you're in the startup phase of maybe starting a company and you would benefit from daily activity that keeps you committed accountable to building what you want to build.

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[00:02:37] Sean Pritzkau: Without getting stock or whether you're someone who is in the arts, right? You're maybe you're an artist like Mike, maybe you're a musician. Maybe you're a photographer and want to dedicate yourself to publishing work daily because as Mike described, there's a ton of benefits to doing so even for your own perception in the market or amongst your clients, because there are few people that, because.

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[00:03:07] Sean Pritzkau: When you commit to doing something daily, you enter into a circle of people that are doing this work daily. And that's a small circle because of the level of commitment. To engage in this for the longterm. So excited to have this conversation and like, I really think you're gonna love it. So let's jump in to episode 26 with Mike Brennan.

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[00:03:41] Sean Pritzkau: All right. Hey there. And welcome back to the podcast today. I am here with Mike Brennan. Mike is a creator and communicator telling stories on pages and stages. His childhood dream was to be a cartoon. And when he realized that wasn't possible, he became the next best thing. And artists capital a artist.

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[00:04:01] Sean Pritzkau: He loves sharing experiences and making connections through his art. And helping fellow frustrated, artists and creatives establish a daily creative habit of their own. So Mike, I'm really excited to have you on the podcast. Yeah, 

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[00:04:15] Mike Brennan: Thanks so much, Sean. I'm excited to be here today. Yeah, 

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[00:04:19] Sean Pritzkau: For everyone listening. Mike and I have known each other for a few years. I think we met here's go back to Nashville prior to the pandemic of categorize all my new like relationships and like pre during and not quite post guess. So, yeah, pre pandemic, and I'm really inspired by the work bike that you do specifically in your consistency and persistence.

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[00:04:39] Sean Pritzkau: And, you know, creating is really an admirable. Some I'm excited to have you on the show today. Tell everyone about yourself briefly before we kind of jump into the interview and you know, what led you to. 

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[00:04:51] Mike Brennan: Yeah. So thanks. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and just share a little bit about who I am, what I do and how I can help other people.

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[00:04:58] Mike Brennan: I am an artist, as you mentioned from my bio and really, you know, the, the communicator, the creator and communicator piece telling stories on stages and pages. The way that breaks down is. The creator side it's graphic design is my background. And then I also do illustration and some live sketching for events and kind of a whole other host of things that fall under the creator side.

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[00:05:22] Mike Brennan: And then communicator side, I do some public speaking and sharing about my own story and experiences on developing a daily creative habit and some other themes, as well as having my own podcast creative chats. And so I communicate through those forums and then every so often blogging. You know, however, I can position myself to get my message out before the right people to help them.

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[00:05:45] Mike Brennan: So that's kind of the short, short version. Yeah. 

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[00:05:48] Sean Pritzkau: Thanks for the short version. I know the long version I liked the longers and to, you know, my background too is, you know, I'm a musician and I've spent a lot of time in creative circles if you will. And I've always thought that everyone is creative and I've heard a lot of people say that, no, I'm not creative, or I wish I was curious.

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[00:06:05] Sean Pritzkau: And I think it's kind of where people combine this idea of creativity and art. I'm not necessarily sure everyone's an artist, right. But I think everyone is creative. So even people jumping into this podcast today who thinks this might not be relevant to them. Cause they're not quote unquote creative. I think you'll be surprised in maybe some ways that Mike might inspire you and entails you today.

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[00:06:28] Sean Pritzkau: I 

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[00:06:28] Mike Brennan: totally agree. By the way. Yeah. You know, and I think one of the things that happens is that people associate. Creativity with the obvious expressions of art, which is drawing, painting music, you know, performance, those kinds of things. And they think, well, I can't do any of those things. Therefore I'm not creative.

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[00:06:43] Mike Brennan: And I'm always like, well, you know what? Maybe the way that you schedule your day is creative because you know how to organize time. Well, or maybe the way that you fix dinner or decorate your house. Or, and there are, there are so many ways that creativity can show up in our lives. And so I think we need to kind of expand that different.

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[00:07:02] Mike Brennan: So that people don't feel like they're excluded. Cause I do agree that everybody is creative in some way. 

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[00:07:07] Sean Pritzkau: Oh yeah. And like, I think if you think or make decisions like you were, you were engaging in this work of, of creativity. Absolutely. So tell us, when you started jumping down this path of expressing your creativity daily, what was the impetus behind this idea of like, you know, starting and maintaining a daily creative.

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[00:07:31] Mike Brennan: Yeah. You know, it's funny, people could say, well for you, it's really easy. I'm sure because you have graphic designs, your background, you know, you went to art school, so there was a ready, this thing that was built into you, that was there, that you could just tap into too, then all of a sudden show up every day.

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[00:07:49] Mike Brennan: But my story has been such that I was a part of the design world and the corporate world. And. Actually ended up getting burned out, leaving that I was away from my art for basically 10 years. Not just professionally, but also personally, like I hadn't done any drawing and done any painting, sketching, anything.

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[00:08:09] Mike Brennan: And it actually really messed with me a lot more than I would've ever thought, because I think when you deny a part of yourself and how you're created, you can't fully show. As yourself. And so that started to really kind of mess with me on a core level. And I started suffering from depression and there were a lot of things tied to that, that I really wasn't sure exactly why this was happening.

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[00:08:34] Mike Brennan: And eventually it led me back around to this place where. Going through so many different things, kind of really hitting rock bottom, a lot of life events and changes. And I just remember like being so depleted from energy, having only enough energy to show up to like maybe journal a little bit, try to process through some emotions and things that were happening.

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[00:08:55] Mike Brennan: And I thought to myself, you know, I feel this call inside of me to come back to my art. And yet, I don't know how to do this because it's been 10 years. I don't know if I can do it. And so I just started with the place of kind of a surrender and going, this is something I'd like to do. I don't know if it's possible, but let me just at least take the right now.

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[00:09:18] Mike Brennan: And in the beginning of the right next step was finding a book by this guy, Danny Gregory, who he wrote this book called the creative license. And it was all about giving yourself permission to show up for your creativity. And in that book, he talks about this idea of doing a 365. Art making journey. And it intrigued me and also scared me because I was like, well, I haven't shown up for 10 years.

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[00:09:42] Mike Brennan: I don't know that I could show up for an entire year now, every single day doing something. I don't know if I could do that for a month or seven days, quite honestly, but I was trying not to get ahead of myself. And so I simply just said, you know, let me. Figure out. Okay. Get my sketchbook, blow the dust off of it.

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[00:10:01] Mike Brennan: Get my art supplies out of the closet, you know, try to reengage tactically with something. And I went to a local Starbucks and I decided I'm just going to draw the Starbucks coffee cup that's in front of me. And I did that and it was the most embarrassing, horrible drawing that I had done a really long time.

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[00:10:18] Mike Brennan: But in that moment I had a decision. I had to say. Be okay with what you're able to produce right now, because this is where you're at. Like extend yourself, grace, don't shackle your thinking with, I should be better than this because of my schooling, my experiences, et cetera, et cetera. Because at the moment that's all I could muster.

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[00:10:40] Mike Brennan: And it was maybe a 10, 15 minute drawing that I could do. And I wrote at the top of that page day one, and I decided. This was okay, because this is where I was right now. And I was going to close the book and then show up again tomorrow for day two and then do something new. And so if I felt bad about what I did in this particular day, I knew that I had another day coming and another chance to show up and do something different.

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[00:11:05] Mike Brennan: And so that kind of led me on this journey of doing this 365 days. Eventually it got to the end of it. And it was like, Wow. I did this. I can't believe that I actually showed up every single day. Now I did a lot of bad work. But it was more about showing up. It was more about cultivating a habit than it really was about the actual work that I was producing.

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[00:11:27] Mike Brennan: And I realized that the level and quality of the work would come as long as I stayed engaged and showed up. And so when I was done with one year, I was like, man did that okay. Check. And I was like, oh, I don't think I'm done. I think there's more to explore here. I think there's more room to grow and to learn and to have a place where you could explore and play and experiment.

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[00:11:51] Mike Brennan: And that was really becoming really important for me because I knew. There were a lot of things I still need to figure out. And this gave me a safe place to do that. And so I kept going and then month after month and year after year, and I just completed 10 years of every single day showing up and doing a drawing or painting.

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[00:12:09] Mike Brennan: And in the beginning it was 15 minutes or 10 minutes. And then it went on from there to add more time as I had it. And since sometimes fluctuated. So this journey continues to this. It's 

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[00:12:20] Sean Pritzkau: really impressive. And I love that you used that language of showing up because it's, it's something really tangible, it's simple and it's some days it might be, all you can do is show up.

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[00:12:32] Sean Pritzkau: And like you said, like being an artist and not engaging in art, one can take a toll on you on a few different ways. And also like the thing that you love to do can suffer like your expression of that, right? Like you said, it was tough to, I'm sure it's kind of like riding a bike, but a little rusty getting back into it.

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[00:12:54] Sean Pritzkau: And so everything right there is super admirable. It touches on a few things. One for me, consistency in all the different things that might breed. Right. So consistency might skill, you know, like make you better at your skill. And you know, like you said, not everything is gonna be. But you might create the things that you wouldn't have created or the things that were really good might not have been as good unless you kind of put in the reps, if you will, and engage that muscle.

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[00:13:22] Sean Pritzkau: So your work really benefits. I'm not sure if you said that you just engaged in creating art every day or you published our every day, did you publish that? 

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[00:13:34] Mike Brennan: Yeah, that was part of me being accountable was I needed to. Shove it out to the social media and go, like, if I didn't show up for a day or something, you know, I knew people were going to be like, Hey, where's the art today?

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[00:13:45] Mike Brennan: You know? 

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[00:13:46] Sean Pritzkau: Yeah. So the accountability, you know, there's a built in accountability system there. If you decide to kind of publish your work to the world and there's vulnerability there as well, but on the other on tube, you know, after 10 years, the perception from people that hear that, there's very few people that create every single day and published every single day and it puts.

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[00:14:07] Sean Pritzkau: And a league of people that, you know, do this every day and there's, you know, perceived credibility. There is, you know, Mike probably knows something about art and creativity and this idea of creating a daily habit. And that's, that's why we're here. Right? We want to really learn from this experience. 

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[00:14:24] Mike Brennan: Well, and let me add too, if I can, there were a few other things that came out of this process and practice honestly, cause that's really what it is.

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[00:14:31] Mike Brennan: Right. And it was some clarity and. Some of that came in the form of, you know, you hear about artists talking about their style or their voice in the work. And for a long time, I had always heard that and I was kind of like, how do you find that? Like, I don't understand. Does that just show up one day? Like I, you know, like, is there a book I can read that can give me a formula?

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[00:14:56] Mike Brennan: Like I don't really, you know, and, and I was engaging with my art previously, but doing so in this manner, This consistency allowed me to say, okay, I'm going to try this. And if it fails, it's fine. I'm going to learn a lot about what I like and what I don't like. And through that process also learned like, oh, you know what?

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[00:15:16] Mike Brennan: Like I'm drawn towards and pardon the pun, but I'm drawn towards messy, organic type of art making. And when I tried to do more highly rendered and stylized work, it frustrates. And that was always the benchmark. When I was younger, especially in art schools, it was like, you know, more control, more concise, you know, highly rendered.

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[00:15:40] Mike Brennan: And yet that was the very thing that would frustrate me and make me feel like I'm not a good artist because I think. Do that, and I don't enjoy that. And so I had to learn to embrace my mess and the more splatters I could add in the more mess I could add, it actually brought me joy and freedom and a confidence that I didn't know, it was capable that I would never have done had it not been engaging in this process.

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[00:16:03] Mike Brennan: And then finding the voice as well going, like, what do I want to say? Through my art, what is it that I'm trying to express and communicate? This is giving me a forum to do that, and then use the art as a vehicle to connect with people and help people. 

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[00:16:18] Sean Pritzkau: That's great. That literally reminded me of a quote. I heard this week from an interview from Victor Wooten, the great legendary basis, talking about finding your own style.

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[00:16:26] Sean Pritzkau: He was obviously talking about music, but something that he said that really stuck with me was how. Everyone talks about like, you know, finding your style in a lot of ways. You're kind of uncovering what's already there. And I think a lot of times when we create, and this can be our, this can be business, even writing where we try to look, sound like others or create like others, or we try to run our business like other than.

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[00:16:53] Sean Pritzkau: And you end up covering up a lot of that unique, you know, what creates who you are. And I, I imagine engaging in this work daily and being sensitive to, like you said, what frustrates you out again, really frustrated when I was trying to do this certain thing, those things become a lot more apparent.

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[00:17:12] Mike Brennan: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think you need to start someplace where your copying and mimicking, because that's how you're really learning. Certain things, you know, in music, you're learning chord progressions, and you're learning about timing and things, you know, in art, you may be learning about colors and layout design.

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[00:17:34] Mike Brennan: And so it's a lot of processing in the beginning trying to acquire those things. But if you never push past copycat, then you never get to a place where you are. Showing up as yourself with those skills, they're simply just skills that you do and that you're mimicking. And so it's kind of hollow. And the only way to really dig down deep and marry those two together, I think is by again, putting in the work and making mistakes and being self-aware in the journey to go what's happening in the things that I'm creating and what's happening in me as I'm crying.

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[00:18:17] Sean Pritzkau: So pardon the maybe obvious question, would you recommend the others start a daily creative habit? 

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[00:18:24] Mike Brennan: Absolutely. And I think, you know, we've been talking obviously in the context of my journey with art, but I think anybody who wants to create something that is there, but yet usually there's this resistance and there's this sometimes a thought immediately of, well, I could never do that.

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[00:18:44] Mike Brennan: I don't have the time for that. I don't have the focus. And we talk ourselves out of these things before we even attempt to try. And so I think we need to reign in that mindset and keep in mind the things that you really truly want to do and create and put small steps in action because it's not going to happen otherwise.

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[00:19:07] Mike Brennan: So yes, go for a daily creative habit. Go for. A time when you set aside for this practice for yourself, for the work that you want to create, because it's not going to be hand delivered to you. It's not going to come in these huge moments of you have an entire weekend to just go and create and, you know, sit down in one, sitting in and create the thing.

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[00:19:32] Mike Brennan: That's your life's work. It doesn't work that way. 

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[00:19:36] Sean Pritzkau: Yeah. I know some people that have, that are creative that have engaged in a similar practice. So for example, I have a real close friend that he challenged himself. I think 60 days, he came up with a concept, a recorded, edited, and published a video every single day, short video and the YouTube channel for 60 days.

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[00:19:55] Sean Pritzkau: And that was his creative practice. And the people have done logos, design, a logo every single day. And I know this is. Work that you do in your, your own work, encouraging people to create these daily habits. What are some examples of other daily habits that you've seen maybe in the creative world that maybe outside of it?

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[00:20:12] Sean Pritzkau: People who don't consider themselves creative, but engaged in something daily? 

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[00:20:17] Mike Brennan: Yeah, most readily. I think about people who are writers, you know, who are authors or writing in some contexts, maybe it's blog posts, maybe it's even. You know, sales copy or whatever they need for their business, they need consistent content.

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[00:20:37] Mike Brennan: Right. And so I've seen how people can employ this to set up the system and, you know, regardless of whatever it is that you're actually producing as the content, the system is the thing that you can apply in order to get there. And so, You know, I said before, start small, don't expect these great chunks of time.

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[00:21:04] Mike Brennan: That's the foothold. That's how you get in the door. And so for people who are writing, they go, well, I would love to be able to write an entire article or entire chapter or an entire book or whatever it is. And. I don't have that kind of available time because I have financial you know, responsibilities with work and, and, and, you know, and, and family responsibilities and all these different things that are going on.

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[00:21:27] Mike Brennan: And so how do I squeeze this in? And I say, well, okay, what time do you have, do you have a lunch hour? Do you have 15 minutes of the lunch hour that you could even just write a few paragraphs? And so. Bringing the bar down to a manageable place helps people get engaged. And then I also say, remember, it's not about the quality of the work in the beginning because people think, well, what am I going to accomplish in 15 minutes?

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[00:21:49] Mike Brennan: Really? Like, that sounds stupid. Why do I even 

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[00:21:52] Sean Pritzkau: want to engage with that? Yeah. That's like a very American like productivity 

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[00:21:56] Mike Brennan: focused. Yes, exactly. It's got to be all or nothing. So I have to try to, you know, remind people it's not about. What you're actually producing in those 15 minutes. It's about you developing a habit right now, because when you develop a habit, it brings momentum and that momentum can bring change.

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[00:22:16] Mike Brennan: And so that's really the thing that we're after we're after the long haul. And so, yes, I've seen it in, in writing. I've seen it in music, people, you know, setting out to go, I need to write, maybe it's just a piece of music, you know, like a chorus or something, or maybe a certain lyrics. I've seen it with a lot of visual art, obviously because that's mostly my world.

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[00:22:39] Mike Brennan: And then in the business world too, I think I've seen this take form of when people have projects that they want to launch. It gives a framework that you can easily. Inserted into. And so what I mean by that is like, for me going to the first 365 days, I was like, that seems like too big of a number. I can't wrap my head around it.

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[00:23:03] Mike Brennan: Right. So let me break this down into smaller chunks. What can I do for seven days? What can I do for 14 days? Maybe there's a 30 day project that I can kind of latch onto that somebody else is doing and be. What's happening in another community. And so I gave myself very specific time-bound projects that were part of the overall 365 day project.

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[00:23:25] Mike Brennan: And so I think you can do the same thing within business, where you have these things that you're trying to launch these. Services or products you're trying to build and building that into the system of, okay, here are the things that need to happen in order for these to become a reality. Now, let me work this into the framework of a daily deposit and how can I keep moving this forward?

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[00:23:47] Mike Brennan: And so it might not look like, oh, by the end of seven days, I have this great thing that I'm ready to throw out there into the world, but it might look like, Hey, by the end of seven days, I have. Most of my sales copywritten, or by the end of seven days, I have a framework that I really needed that is going to help shape the rest of this project.

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[00:24:09] Mike Brennan: And so value small because when you add it all up, that's where the power comes. 

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[00:24:16] Sean Pritzkau: Yeah, it's wonderful. That's very, very good advice on a few levels because you know, the toughest part is getting started in so many different things. There's things that I want to be starting right now that I'm thinking about, but it's tough to get started.

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[00:24:30] Sean Pritzkau: And I've found when you go maybe a great length of time and not doing something it's that much harder to get started. So the word that stuck out to me, momentum, you know, these daily creative habits create momentum. And when you have momentum, it's maybe easier to roll out of bed and show up for, for what you want to do.

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[00:24:47] Mike Brennan: Yeah. And that's also why I talk about daily, right? Because people said. You really have to do daily. I mean, it can't you do it weekly, you know, monthly, I don't know. And I said, you know, from my experience. It's important that it was daily because it didn't leave me time in between where things dissipated.

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[00:25:04] Mike Brennan: I also knew that in the past I've had these times when I've flirted with my art. Right. You know, I was like, oh yeah, like I want to do this thing, this painting. And now I got to go find all my art supplies that I tucked away someplace. And now I have to set up my environment. Now I have to do all this stuff and you spend so much time.

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[00:25:22] Mike Brennan: Trying to prepare for the act of creating that you've depleted your energy and your actual time, and then you have nothing left for the actual act of creating. And so when you start to get into this rhythm of. A lot of those barriers have broken down. And so, you know where the things are, you know, where you need to show up, you're already in the mindset a little bit more, or you can get in that mindset quicker.

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[00:25:43] Mike Brennan: And it's not so much of a struggle to drum this up from deep within to go, okay, now I have to stat and this pressure that comes with it, am I going to perform and create and get accomplished? All the things I wanna accomplish. It's just simply, I'm showing up doing another thing and tomorrow I'm going to do the same thing.

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[00:26:00] Sean Pritzkau: So I'm thinking. I would love to talk about this in maybe two spheres for a moment. There are people listening that are business owners or they're aspiring to start something. What advice would you give to people who are, you know, they're saying, Mike, I really like this idea. I probably don't have as much time in my schedule as I'd like to see, but I, I see merit in starting something daily.

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[00:26:31] Sean Pritzkau: What would you say. 

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[00:26:33] Mike Brennan: I would say everyone says they don't have time. Even the people who have seemingly found the time, there was always a time at which somebody said that. And I think that's a myth of finding time. First off it is prioritizing and making time and it is getting in touch with the thing that's in.

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[00:26:57] Mike Brennan: To the degree where you become passionate about it and say, I know I'm going to need to make sacrifices. And if this is truly something I want to do and is this, isn't just like, wow, it's a passing interest or something, you know, nice to do one day kind of thing. But really, truly something you want to do.

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[00:27:13] Mike Brennan: Then I think you figure it out. You make the time and that's when I say start looking at your day. If it's in the beginning, you have 10, 15 minutes, you know, is there a commute that you have where perhaps you could do something? Is there a lunch hour part of a lunch hour, you can do something. Maybe you get up a little bit earlier in the morning before everyone in the household is awake or at the end of the night, you know, as everybody's gone to bed, you stay up a little bit later.

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[00:27:42] Mike Brennan: It's identifying these small blocks of time to be able to leverage towards what it is that you want to do and be open-handed with what things look like. 'cause I think so many times we get super dialed into this is my vision. This is the dream of what I think this should look like. And oftentimes, as we're showing up to engage with the process, it doesn't quite look the way that we expected or want it to.

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[00:28:16] Mike Brennan: And that expectation then derails us, because we feel disappointed. We feel like discouraged because. We're trying, but yet we're not seeing results that we would love to. Yeah. And so, you know, I think it, again comes down to prioritizing. It comes down to being aligned. It comes down to mindset of saying whatever those barriers are.

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[00:28:41] Mike Brennan: I need to identify them first and then start taking them down. And again, small, small, small, small, you cannot put yourself. Someplace where you think again, I need to create my life's work in this afternoon and then go, well, that didn't happen. So therefore the whole process is going out the window. Also think of it as you know, the marathon, right.

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[00:29:05] Mike Brennan: You're going the long haul. And so build a system for the long haul. 

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[00:29:10] Sean Pritzkau: That's great. So then on this other sphere, I think there's folks who in a daily creative habit, this isn't something that they. Th the going to be doing the implement into their business and try to, you know, grow their revenue or their audience or something, or that it get something off the ground.

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[00:29:28] Sean Pritzkau: But I know a lot in your work. And like you mentioned up top mental health is a big portion of this and why this is valuable for you. And I know, I mean, we'll release this podcast recording right in the middle of may, 2022 during mental health awareness. So talk to us about, you know, the benefit there and you know, what you encouraged for folks who want to integrate this into their life in a, in a personal level.

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[00:29:58] Sean Pritzkau: And obviously there's this in-between of both personal and professional and kind of how this roots us and grounds us. 

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[00:30:04] Mike Brennan: Yeah, totally. And I will say this too, for me, my journey started out of simply wanting to get back to a place of joy and where I could do this because it made me feel good to create.

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[00:30:17] Mike Brennan: The more I did it the longer I went it also then started to cross over into business. And then I started to realize like, oh, there are things that I can create that are products or services. There are other things that come out of this that have since become part of what I offer for my business. So while that wasn't the overall goal in the beginning, that's certainly a result of showing up and exploring and figuring out what it is that you want to do and how you want to do it and all that.

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[00:30:45] Mike Brennan: So. On the personal side, you know, my journey with this, it rose up out of depression. It rose up out of mental health struggles. And it's interesting because you would think you need to be able to have this healthy, vibrant type of existence before you could jump into trying to do something like this, but yet this was the very thing that I needed to bring life back.

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[00:31:16] Mike Brennan: To bring some health back to bring some perspective back. And so while it was doing a lot of things, technically it was also doing things a lot emotionally and mentally, you know, it was giving me a sense of who I am and who I was and giving me a place again, that was safe to do this because it wasn't about clients.

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[00:31:34] Mike Brennan: It wasn't about budgets and committees and all the rest of the things, but it was about me. And so when I felt sad, when I wanted to process through something. That had to do with mental health. This was a form that I could do it in. I could create a piece of art that said, this is how I'm feeling today, or this is what I'm thinking about today.

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[00:31:52] Mike Brennan: And then when I would post it and publish it, a lot of times, other people would be like, oh wow, thank you so much for sharing that because I have been there or I am there, or I have felt that, and it becomes a connection point with people. And so I think, I think it's important on just a base level as a person.

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[00:32:13] Mike Brennan: To be able to create, because you need it for that aspect of health, it does something in you to show up and create. And so for mental health right now, you know, I have decided at the beginning of the year, I was really feeling. Pulled towards sharing, even more stories around my mental health journey and some of the struggles and giving voice to some of that conversation.

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[00:32:40] Mike Brennan: And that's really what I hope that it becomes as a conversation because I think a lot of creative people that I've talked to one-on-one have struggled immensely, especially over the past couple of years of being isolated anxiety has just increased depression has increased. And there's this sense of shame.

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[00:32:58] Mike Brennan: I think that comes with it. That goes, you know, here I am a creative person and maybe I'm a creative person who is making a living off my creativity. And I need to show up every single day because this is what I do, but yet I'm struggling immensely. And I feel like I can't talk about it because if I talk about it, I'm going to be shamed or I might even lose my job.

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[00:33:18] Mike Brennan: 'cause I can't perform the way that I need to perform. And I think that's a big problem. And I don't hear a lot of people talking about that and I don't hear a lot of people sharing. And being willing to be vulnerable a lot of times, because I think vulnerability intimidate people's eyes equals weakness, but I see it as the exact opposite.

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[00:33:37] Mike Brennan: I see it as strength. And so I want to lead the way with being vulnerable and saying, yeah, you know what? Like these are the things that I've been through and this is why I'm creating some art around this. And right now, you know, I'm starting a challenge. I'm inviting people in called creative mental health Mondays.

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[00:33:55] Mike Brennan: And it's simply going to be right now on Instagram, where people can create a piece of art, something around the theme of mental health, whether it's depression, anxiety, burnout, and share a little story, share a little context of why they created what they created and share out there. You know, use this hashtag and you tag me on Instagram and let me elevate some of these stories and start to try to build a little bit.

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[00:34:20] Mike Brennan: Conversation and community around this, because I think it's something that's very, very much needed right now, you know? 

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[00:34:27] Sean Pritzkau: Hmm. I love that specifically. I mean, I've benefited so much from our, as a avid music listener, enthusiast and loving, you know, movies and film and. R this have this responsibility and gift of taking off and what we can say in the words and orchestrating in a way that helps us understand and process learn from others' journeys.

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[00:34:52] Sean Pritzkau: So I love this. Tell us one more time about that, the challenge. So you want people to share something? It sounds not like on Mondays. And what was that hashtag. 

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[00:35:02] Mike Brennan: Yeah. So it's, it's creative, mental health Mondays, right. And so I'm just using, you know, C, M H M, yeah. For creative mental health Mondays. And again, just share it on, on social media, share it on Instagram and tag me at Mike bone this way I can see it and I can start to share it, reshare some of those things.

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[00:35:22] Mike Brennan: And my hope again is that there's some stories that emerge out of this and some experiences where people start to see. You know, this has been a struggle, but I'm tired of suffering in silence. And perhaps some other people say, wow, I feel real seen and heard right now because someone else was willing to share their story.

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[00:35:39] Mike Brennan: I know that's happened for me. And so this could be visual art. It could be music, it could be written word. I mean, whatever somebody wants to create. Around these themes, I'm inviting them to create. And let's see what happens with this. Let's start a movement, you know, that brings more awareness and more conversation around these things.

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[00:36:00] Mike Brennan: And so I have some more specific details on my website. If you go to creatives with an S mental health.com, you'll see a page that has more specific information around it. If somebody is interested in joining it, I'm looking forward to what happens with this. 

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[00:36:14] Sean Pritzkau: Awesome. For all the reasons we just shared about accountability and showing up and you know, really building community around this.

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[00:36:22] Sean Pritzkau: I really love that. We'll definitely include. The info to that in the show notes for anyone that wants to participate in one, you know, a daily creative habit, like has some really great content and resources around that, as well as if you want to participate in a challenge of creating art around mental health.

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[00:36:41] Sean Pritzkau: And in joining this community entails that Mike has put this. Mike. Thanks so much for sharing about your, your journey here in this idea of creativity and engaging in it and making a a practice, make it a habit. Is there anything else you want to share before we wrap up? And if someone wants to find you on the internet contact, you, you have a podcast.

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[00:37:04] Mike Brennan: Yeah. So I'm at Mike Bohn on Instagram. I post still very regularly there. I'm not necessarily sharing all my daily work any more there just cause I'm trying to change up my strategy a little bit more, especially towards this mental health conversation. My website is my brennan.me that has links to all my various other kind of offshoots and social media accounts as well.

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[00:37:27] Mike Brennan: And my podcast is creative chat. And I speak with fellow creative people. Some of them artists, some of them are business owners and entrepreneurs. Some of them are I mean, you fill in the blank. I, I really have a wide variety of people that I try to talk to all tracing their story and their process.

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[00:37:44] Mike Brennan: And regardless of whatever their expression is, My hope is that somebody can listen to an episode and go, oh, you know what? I can apply that principle, or I can apply that part of their story to my own overlay. And it helps me give some context to what I'm going through. Oh, it's normal to have this struggle or it's normal to have these questions.

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[00:38:03] Mike Brennan: So yeah, check that out. I hope that that people are. Awesome. 

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[00:38:07] Sean Pritzkau: Yeah, there we go. We'll have all that information in the show notes. Definitely jump in and listen to the podcast and subscribe to the podcast. And Mike, thanks so much. It was really great chatting with you today and I'm looking forward to see how people participate in this challenge and being able to.

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[00:38:25] Mike Brennan: Yeah, me too. Thank you so much, Sean. I really appreciate it today.

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[00:38:42] Sean Pritzkau: Great conversation with Mike. I always find myself inspired by Mike's journey and one impressed by his commitment. And I want to emulate that in a lot of ways, but also how he really does carry this work out personally and how passionate he is about helping others instill what he's found in his own creative work.

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[00:39:06] Sean Pritzkau: Personally, I'm thinking through what my own daily creative. Would look like particularly when it relates to my work. So I'm going to be thinking about this for, for a little while, and I can credit Mike for being some of the inspiration here. Now we have links in the show notes for everything we discussed in the podcast and in particular, a link to Mike's page, a daily creative habit.

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[00:39:29] Sean Pritzkau: So you can learn more about that as well as his challenge for mental health Monday. And then his podcast as well, definitely go and check out his creative chats podcast and you can follow him on Instagram. All the art that he produces and creates and it's, and it's really great to follow along. So thanks again.

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[00:39:48] Sean Pritzkau: And I'll see you next week. .

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